


Practice Makes Perfect

by rivers_bend



Series: Glam Nation [1]
Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), American Idol RPF, Tommy Ratliff (Musician)
Genre: M/M, glam nation tour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-21
Updated: 2010-06-21
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:26:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivers_bend/pseuds/rivers_bend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neil gets confused watching Adam and Tommy ~practice the ~stage gay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Practice Makes Perfect

**Author's Note:**

> The obvious: I don't know any of the people whose personas are mentioned here and neither believe nor mean to imply this actually happened.

  
Tommy Ratliff is not the most intellectually stimulating person Neil has ever met, but the guy isn't _stupid_ or anything, so Neil can't understand why he's having so much trouble following what sounds to Neil's ears like simple instructions.

"Cross to me," Adam says. "Then turn at the last second, I'll put my hand on your shoulder, you lean back a little like you're going to come toward me, then walk away instead."

Tommy nods, smiles, walks towards Adam, hands up like he's holding his bass, and then instead of turning and waiting for Adam's hand, he keeps going, rubs his face on Adam's arm, and pretty much gropes Adam's thigh with the hand that he'll need for hitting the strings while they're on stage. Which, how is that going to work?

Neil half expects Adam to ask if Tommy's deaf—that's what he'd ask Neil if Neil did what Tommy's doing—but Adam just kind of chuckles and says, "Not quite. Try again?"

Tommy retreats to the other side of the room and prowls back when Adam crooks a finger. And then proceeds to get it wrong four more times, grinning, like he's not totally messing up simple choreography.

Neil's phone buzzes while Adam's looking through the stuff piled in one corner of the rehearsal room they're using. "Do you need to schlep?" Adam asks Neil.

"It's just Dad tweeting." Neil was schlepping all morning, and now he's gonna sit on his ass on this reasonably comfortable sofa and learn something about the prep work that goes into putting on a show like Glam Nation.

Adam finds what he's looking for—it seems to be a reject from a step aerobics class—and climbs up on it.

"You're there," he says to Tommy, pointing at the floor to the left of the step. "Then I come down and you back up two paces, lean backwards, rest your head on my solar plexus, one-two-three-four, up again, a step away, turn to look at me, then back to your place when I move forward."

Tommy _clearly_ has no idea what a solar plexus is, because on the first take the top of his head ends up resting on Adam's hip bone.

"That's Adam's hip bone," Neil says helpfully.

Tommy laughs. "Sorry. I'll go again."

They go again, and this time Tommy bends even farther so his head is on Adam's thigh. Neil doesn't point out that if Tommy isn't careful he's gonna get poked in the eye with Adam's Mr. Happy.

Adam laughs and ruffles Tommy's hair.

The third time, Tommy uses Adam's belt buckle as a pillow.

"Or that," Adam says, and doesn't make Tommy do it again, even though there is at least a foot between his solar plexus and his belt.

They rehearse for almost an hour, and Tommy grinds when he's supposed to lean, rubs like a cat when he's supposed to toss his head, and presses closer like he thinks Adam might kiss him when he's supposed to pull away teasingly. Neal _really_ doesn't get how one person can be _so_ stupid. At last Adam calls time for lunch.

Neil thought they were going to meet next door at the sandwich place after Adam and Tommy went upstairs to get their wallets, but they never show up, so he eats his pastrami alone.

Later that night, Neil runs into Adam in the hallway outside the hotel's sauna. "I never knew all that stage-gay stuff was so complicated," he says when Adam falls into step with him.

"It's not," Adam says in a tone that definitely implies curiosity about why Neil said that.

"Just—" Neil isn't sure how to put this delicately. "Tommy seemed to find it awfully hard."

To Neil's surprise, Adam laughs, a big, delighted sound. "Oh my god, Neil," he says—all big-brother patronizing. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that sometimes things can be _hard_ without being complicated?"

When Adam laughs again, more quietly this time but still delighted sounding, it dawns on Neil that maybe _he_ is the one who's slow on the uptake, not Tommy.

"Ew," he says. Because Adam's his brother, and he's pretty sure that was an overshare.

"Oh my god," Adam repeats, shaking his head and pushing the button for the elevator.

"I hate you," Neil retorts, turning on his heel and heading for the bar. With luck there will be someone there who wants to get him drunk.


End file.
